A Stranger in a Strange Land

by Robert A. Heinlein

  "Huh? No, no - forget it."

  "No, sir. I don't like to have my professional actions questioned without cause. As you know very well, a patient that old can smother in a water bed; I did what was necessary. Some nurses will take any blame from a doctor, but I am not one of them. So let's call the superintendent."

  "What? Look, Miss Boardman, I'm sorry I said anything. I was upset and I popped off without thinking. I apologize."

  "Very well, Doctor," Jill answered stiffly. "Is there anything more I can do for you?"

  "Uh? No, thank you. Thanks for standing by for me. Just... well, be sure not to mention it, will you?"

  "I won't mention it." You can bet your sweet life I won't mention it, Jill added silently. But what do I do now? Oh, I wish Ben were in town! She got back to her duty desk, nodded to her assistant, and pretended to look over some papers. Finally she remembered to phone for the powered bed she had been after in the first place. Then she sent her assistant to look at the patient who needed the bed (now temporarily resting in the ordinary type) and tried to think.

  Where was Ben? If he were only in touch, she would take ten minutes relief, call him, and shift the worry onto his broad shoulders. But Ben, damn him, was off skyoodling somewhere and letting her carry the ball.

  Or was he? A fretful suspicion that had been burrowing around in her subconscious all day finally surfaced and looked her in the eye, and this time she returned the stare: Ben Caxton would not have left town without letting her know the outcome of his attempt to see the Man from Mars. As a fellow conspirator it was her right to receive a report and Ben always played fair... always.

  She could hear sounding in her head something he had said on the ride back from Hagerstown: "-if anything goes wrong, you are my ace in the hole... honey, if you don't hear from me, you are on your own,"

  She had not thought seriously about it at the time, as she had not really believed that anything could happen to Ben. Now she thought about it for a long time, while trying to continue her duties. There comes a time in the life of every human when he or she must decide to risk "his life, his fortune, and his sacred honor" on an outcome dubious. Those who fail the challenge are merely overgrown children, can never be anything else. Jill Boardman encountered her personal challenge - and accepted it - at 3:47 that afternoon while convincing a ward visitor that he simply could not bring a dog onto the floor even though he had managed to slip it past the receptionist and even if the sight of this dog was just what the patient needed.

  The Man from Mars sat down again when Jill left. He did not pick up the picture book they had given him but simply waited in a fashion which may be described as "patient" only because human language does not embrace Martian emotions nor attitudes. He merely held still with quiet happiness because his brother had said that he would return. He was prepared to wait, without doing anything, without moving, for several years if necessary.

  He had no clear idea how long it had been since he had first shared water with this brother; not only was this place curiously distorted in time and shape, with sequences of sights and sounds and experiences new to him and not yet grokked, but also the culture of his nest took a different grasp of time from that which is human. The difference lay not in their much longer lifetimes as counted in Earth years, but in a basically different attitude. The sentence, "It is later than you think," could not have been expressed in Martian - nor could "Haste makes waste," though for a different reason: the first notion was inconceivable while the latter was an unexpressed Martian basic, as unnecessary as telling a fish to bathe. But the quotation, "As it was in the Beginning, is now and ever shall be," was so Martian in mood that it could be translated more easily than "two plus two makes four" - which was not a truism on Mars.

  Smith waited.

  Brush came in and looked at him; Smith did not move and Brush went away.

  When Smith heard a key in the outer door, he recalled that this sound had been one that he had heard somewhat before the last visit of his water brother, so he shifted his metabolism in preparation, in case the sequence occurred again. He was astonished when the door opened and Jill slipped in, as he had not been aware that the outer door was a door. But he grokked it at once and gave himself over to the joyful fullness which comes only in the presence of one's own nestlings, one's chosen water brothers, and (under certain circumstances) in the presence of the Old Ones.

  His joy was somewhat sullied by immediate awareness that his brother did not fully share it... - in truth, he seemed more distressed than was possible save in one about to discorporate because of some shameful lack or failure.

  But Smith had already learned that these creatures, so much like himself in some ways, could endure emotions dreadful to contemplate and still not die. His Brother Mahmoud underwent a spiritual agony five times daily and not only did not die but had urged the agony on him as a needful thing. His Brother Captain van Tromp suffered terrifying spasms unpredictably, any one of which should have, by Smith's standards, produced immediate discorporation to end the conflict - yet that brother was still corporate so far as he knew.

  So he ignored Jill's agitation.

  Jill handed him a bundle. "Here, put these on. Hurry!"

  Smith accepted the bundle and stood waiting. Jill looked at him and said, "Oh, dear! All right, get your clothes off. I'll help you."

  She was forced to do more than help; she had to undress and dress him. He had been wearing a hospital gown, a bathrobe, and slippers, not because he wanted them but because he had been told to wear them. He could handle them himself by now, but not fast enough to suit Jill; she skinned him quickly. She being a nurse and he never having heard of the modesty taboo - nor would he have grasped an explanation - they were not slowed up by irrelevancies; the difficulties were purely mechanical. He was delighted and surprised by the long false skins Jill drew over his legs, but she gave him no time to cherish them, but taped the women's stockings to his thighs in lieu of a garter belt. The nurse's uniform she dressed him in was not her own, but one that she had borrowed from a larger woman on the excuse that a cousin of hers needed one for a masquerade party. Jill hooked a nurse's cape around his neck and reflected that its all-enclosing straight drape covered most of the primary and secondary sex characteristics - at least she hoped that it would. The shoes were more difficult, as they did not fit well and Smith still found standing and walking in this gravity field an effort even barefooted.

  But at last she got him covered and pinned a nurse's cap on his head. "Your hair isn't very long," she said anxiously, "but it is practically as long as a lot of the girls wear it and it will have to do." Smith did not answer as he had not understood much of the remark. He tried to think his hair longer but realized that it would take time.

  "Now," said Jill. "Listen carefully. No matter what happens, don't say a word. I'll do all the talking. Do you understand me?"

  "Don't talk. I will not talk."

  "Just come with me - I'll hold your hand. And don't say a word. But if you know any prayers, pray!"

  "Pray?"

  "Never mind. You just come along and don't talk." She opened the quick glance outside, then took his hand and led him out into the corridor.

  No one seemed especially interested. Smith found the many strange configurations upsetting in the extreme; he was assaulted by images he could not bring into focus. He stumbled blindly along beside Jill, with his eyes and senses almost disconnected to protect himself against chaos.

  She led him to the end of the corridor and stepped on a slide-away leading crosswise. He almost fell down and would have done so if Jill had not caught him. A chambermaid looked curiously at them and Jill cursed under her breath - then was very careful in helping him off. They took an elevator to the roof, Jill being quite sure that she could never pilot him up a bounce tube.

  On the roof they encountered a major crisis, though Smith was not aware of it. He was undergoing the keen delight of seeing sky; he had not seen sky since the sky of Mars. This s
ky was bright and colorful and joyful - it being a typical overcast Washington grey day. In the meantime Jill was looking around helplessly for a taxi. The roof was almost deserted, something she had counted on, since most of the nurses who came off duty when she did were already headed home fifteen minutes ago and the afternoon visitors were gone. But the taxis were, of course, gone too. She did not dare risk an air bus, even though one which went her way would be along in a few minutes.

  She was about to call a taxi when one headed in for a landing. She called to the roof attendant. "Jack! Is that cab taken? I need one."

  "It's probably the one I called for Dr. Phipps."

  "Oh, dear! Jack, see how quick you can get me another one, will you? This is my cousin Madge - she works over in South Wing - and she has a terrible laryngitis and I want to get her out of this wind."

  The attendant looked dubiously toward the phone in his booth and scratched his head. "Well... seeing it's you, Miss Boardman, I'll let you take this one and call another one for Dr. Phipps. How's that?"

  "Oh, Jack, you're a lamb! No, Madge, don't try to talk; I'll thank him. Her voice is gone completely; I'm going to take her home and bake it out with hot rum."

  "That ought to do it. Old-fashioned remedies are always best, my mother used to say." He reached into the cab and punched the combination for Jill's home from memory, then helped them in. Jill managed to get in the way and thereby cover up Smith's unfamiliarity with this common ceremonial. "Thanks, Jack. Thanks loads."

  The cab took off and Jill took her first deep breath. "You can talk

  "What should I say?"

  "Huh? Nothing. Anything. Whatever you like."

  Smith thought this over. The scope of the invitation obviously called for a worthy answer, suitable to brothers. He thought of several, discarded them because he did not know how to translate them, then settled on one which he thought he could translate fairly well but which nevertheless conveyed even in this strange, flat speech some of the warm growing-closer brothers should enjoy. "Let our eggs share the same nest."

  Jill looked startled. "Huh? What did you say?"

  Smith felt distressed at the failure to respond in kind and interpreted it as failure on his own part. He realized miserably that, time after time, he had managed to bring agitation to these other creatures when his purpose had been to create oneness. He tried again, rearranging his sparse vocabulary to enfold the thought somewhat differently. "My nest is yours and your nest is mine."

  This time Jill managed to smile. "Why, how sweet! My dear, I am not sure that I understand you, but if I do, that is the nicest offer I have had in a long time." She added, "But right now we are up to our ears in trouble - so let's wait a while, shall we?"

  Smith had understood Jill hardly more than Jill had understood him, but he caught his water brother's pleased mood and understood the suggestion to wait. Waiting was something he did without effort, so he sat back, satisfied that all was well between himself and his brother, and enjoyed the scenery. It was the first time he had seen this place from the air and on every side there was a richness of new things to try to grok. It occurred to him that the apportation used at home did not permit this delightful viewing of what lay between. This thought almost led him to a comparison of Martian and human methods not favorable to the Old Ones, but his mind automatically shied away from heresy.

  Jill kept quiet, too, and tried to get her thoughts straight. Suddenly she realized that the cab was heading down the final traffic leg toward the apartment house where she lived - and she realized just as quickly that home was the last place for her to go, it being the first place they would look once they figured out how Smith had escaped and who had helped him. She did not kid herself that she had covered her tracks. While she knew nothing of police methods, she supposed that she must have left fingerprints in Smith's room, not to mention the people who had seen them walk out. It was even possible (so she had heard) for a technician to read the tape in this cab's pilot and tell exactly what trips it had made that day and where and when.

  She reached forward, slapped the order keys, and cleared the instruction to go to her apartment house. She did not know whether that would wipe the tape or not - but she was not going to head for a place where the police might already be waiting.

  The cab checked its forward motion, rose out of the traffic lane and hovered. Where could she go? Where in all this swarming city could she hide a grown man who was half idiot and could not even dress himself? A man who was the most sought-after person on the globe? Oh, if Ben were only here! Ben - where are you?

  She reached forward again, picked up the phone and rather hopelessly punched Ben's number, expecting to hear the detached voice of an automation inviting her to record a message. Her spirits jumped when a man's voice answered - then slumped again when she realized that it was not Ben but his majordomo, Osbert Kilgallen. "Oh. Sorry, Mr. Kilgallen. This is Jill Boardman. I thought I had called Mr. Caxton's home."

  "You did. But I always have his home calls relayed to the office when he is away more than twenty-four hours."

  "Then he is still away?"

  "I'm afraid so. Is there anything I can do for you?"

  "Uh, no. Look, Mr. Kilgallen, isn't it strange that Ben should just drop out of sight? Aren't you worried about him?"

  "Eh? Why should I be? His message said that he did not know how long he would be away."

  "Isn't that rather odd in itself?"

  "Not in Mr. Caxton's work, Miss Boardman."

  "Well... I think there is something very odd about his being away this time! I think you ought to report it. You ought to spread it over every news service in the country - in the world!"

  Even though the cab's phone had no vision circuit Jill felt Osbert Kilgallen draw himself up. "I'm afraid, Miss Boardman, that I will have to interpret my employer's instructions myself. Uh - if you don't mind my saying so, there is always some... 'good friend' phoning Mr. Caxton frantically every time he leaves town."

  Some babe trying to get a hammer lock on him, Jill interpreted angrily - and this Osbert character thinks I'm the current one. It put out of her mind the half-formed thought of asking Kilgallen for help; she switched off as quickly as possible.

  But where could she go? The obvious solution popped into her mind. If Ben was missing - and the authorities had a hand in it - the last place they would be likely to look for Valentine Smith would be Ben's apartment. Unless, she corrected, they connected her with Ben, which she did not think that they did.

  They could dig a bite to eat out of Ben's buttery - she wouldn't risk ordering anything from the basement; they might know he was away. And she could borrow some of Ben's clothes for her idiot child. The last point settled it; she set the combination for Ben's apartment house. The cab picked out the new lane and dropped into it.

  Once outside the door to Ben's flat Jill put her face to the hush box by the door and said emphatically, "Karthago delenda est!"

  Nothing happened. Oh damn him! she said frantically to herself; he's changed the combo. She stood there for a moment, knees weak, and kept her face away from Smith. Then she again spoke into the hush box. It was a Raytheon lock, the same voice circuit actuated the door or announced callers. She announced herself on the forlorn chance that Ben might have returned. "Ben, this is Jill."

  The door slid open.

  They went inside and the door closed. Jill thought for an instant that Ben had let them in, then she realized that she had accidentally hit on his new door combination... intended, she guessed, as a gracious compliment combined with a wolf tactic. She felt that she could have dispensed with the compliment to have avoided the awful panic she had felt when the door had refused to open.

  Smith stood quietly at the edge of the thick green lawn and looked at the room. It again was a place so new to him as not to be grokked at once, but he felt immediately pleased with it. It was less exciting than the moving place they had just been in, but in many ways more suited for enfolding together the se
lf. He looked with interest at the view window at one end but did not recognize it as a window, mistaking it for a living picture like those he had been used to at home - the suite he had been in at Bethesda contained no windows, it being in one of the newer wings, and thus far he had never acquired the idea of "window."

  He noticed with approval that the simulation of depth and movement in the "picture" was perfect - some very great artist among these people must have created it. Up until this time he had seen nothing to cause him to think that these people possessed art; his grokldng of them was increased by this new experience and he felt warmed.

  A movement caught his eye; he turned to find his brother removing the false skins as well as the slippers from its legs.

  Jill sighed and wiggled her toes in the grass. "Gosh, how my feet do hurt!" She glanced up and saw Smith watching her with that curiously disturbing baby-faced stare. "Do it yourself if you want to. You'll love it."

  He blinked. "How do?"

  "I keep forgetting. Come here, I'll help you." She got his shoes off, untaped the stockings and peeled them off. "There, doesn't that feel good?"

  Smith wiggled his toes in the cool grass, then said timidly, "But these live?"

  "Sure, they're alive. It's real live grass. Ben paid a lot to have it that way. Why, the special lighting circuits alone cost more than I make in a month. So walk around and let your feet enjoy it."

  Smith missed much of the speech but he did understand that the grass was made up of living beings and that he was being invited to walk on them. "Walk on living things?" he asked with incredulous horror.

  "Huh? Why not? It doesn't hurt this grass; it was specially developed for house rugs."

  Smith was forced to remind himself that a water brother could not lead him into wrongful action. Apprehensively he let himself be encouraged to walk around - and found that he did enjoy it and that the living creatures did not protest. He set his sensitivity for such things as high as possible; his brother was right, this was their proper being - to be walked on. He resolved to enfold it and praise it; the effort was much like that of a human trying to appreciate the merits of cannibalism - a custom which Smith found perfectly proper.